Sunday, December 27, 2015

Sporting Linked with Spanish Left Sided Player

Since Sporting KC's season ended the team has not hidden the fact that they are looking to Europe to improve the team. Robb Heineman has said recently that the club was looking in Spain, Portugal, and Eastern Europe to try to find new players for KC next year. In fact, on Christmas Eve, Heineman tweeted that the team had signed a new foreign defensive player. Since then people have found links from Spanish papers linking Kansas City with Dani Castellano of UD Las Palmas.

The 28 year old Castellano has spent the majority of his career for the Spanish club based on the Canary Islands. The only departure being a three year stretch when he played for RCD Mallorca, their B team and a couple loan moves. Castellano plays on the left side and lately seems to have been playing at the left back position for Palmas but has apparently spent time as a left sided midfielder as well in his career.

Signing him as a left defender would be an interesting move considering KC already has re-signed left back, Seth Sinovic this offseason, still has Canadian international Marcel de Jong on the books, and two of KC's rookies, Amadou Dia and Saad Abdul-Salaam both spent time at left back in 2015. Now from one aspect that lack of consistency could be a reason to go looking for a consistent left back, but before going that far, KC likely needs to move some of their other left backs first.

On the other hand, other papers seem to doubt that Castellano will move as he has started 12 of La Palmas 16 games so far in this La Liga season. The other reason to potentially doubt this move, at least right now, is that Castellano is apparently under contract until 2017. In the past Peter Vermes has talked about his reluctance to pay transfer fees for players when others would be available on a free transfer.